I watch a lot of television coverage of the campaigns (CNN and Fox) and I have yet to hear either Hillary or Trump even say the word “abortion.” Remember in years past it was a pretty hot issue? Well, this year you don’t hear a peep about it.

Well, maybe every once in a while one of them mentions the Supreme Court and I think I heard Trump say he will appoint pro-life judges but it clearly was not the main message of his speech. Actually, I’m never sure what his main message is, come to think of it.

Trump

Trump does intrigue me, however. Billion dollar “playboy,” three wives, the Big Apple. Are you telling me that he’s never been personally involved someway in the procurement of an abortion? Now that would be a story, wouldn’t it? Indeed, out of curiosity I called a doctor friend of mine at a large clinic in Manhattan and I asked him if he ever saw Trump come through his doors. To his credit, however, he said “well, if I did, I could never tell you.” Oh yeah, I forgot about that confidentiality thing.

The pro-choice folks know Hillary is clearly on their side and has, in fact, come out in favor of taxpayer funded abortions. But as for Trump, I know a number of pro-lifers are skeptical of his position on abortion. Like me, they look at this high-flying jet setter and it spells “I knocked someone up and I took care of it.”

But the pro-lifers have nothing to worry about. Even if he has some pro-choice in him personally, if he became President here’s what will happen. First of all, if he becomes President that means the U.S. Senate will remain in Republican hands. So, he would right off the top have Justice Scalia’s seat to fill – and who do you think he would nominate? Well, he is going to have to nominate a pro-lifer. If he doesn’t, if he tries to play games, that person will not be confirmed. Simple as that. The Senate Republicans will be in no mood to accept any kind of moderate. And you know what? Trump will go along with them because he honestly could give a shit about the Supreme Court. That’s not his thing. It takes too much thought to consider the ramifications. He’ll be busy trying to build his wall and would rather not be spending any time talking about Supreme Court cases.

Trump

Now, when Hillary wins, the Senate might go back to the Democrats. But she will not have 60 or more Democrats needed to stop a filibuster of her nomination. Indeed, the MINUTE she nominates a pro-choice justice, the likes of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and other would be candidates will be lining up for the microphone to lead the “historic filibuster” against the nominee. So she is going to have to be very clever – nominate someone who is pro-choice but whose position on the issue is unknown. And how she does that is anyone’s guess.

Truth be told, John. The Bushes were not hard core pro-lifers, especially the first one who, when in Congress, was big on federal support for family planning dollars. They both just had to take that position to get the nomination. Much like Jesse Jackson was pro-life until he tried to get the Dem nomination. And, yes, Reagan was pro-life but I remember the pro-life lobbyists complaining about him because he was only giving them lip service when we considered the Hatch Amendment.

Pat, Hillary’s problem is that she’s a “centrist” Democrat, and to keep the wingnuts on the right happy, she will fudge on the abortion issue, especially when she knows her base won’t retaliate against her for it.

I’d hope for better, but she has been disappointing. On the other hand, I think we can count on her not to put another wingnut on the Supreme Court.

Yeah, Hillary is pissing me off. She and her husband love skirting around the edge. What I dont get is she says she will not accept foreign money if elected for her foundation but it was okay when she was the highest ranking diplomat in the country?? If the GOP had nominated Kasich or even Cruz, she would be dead in the water.

I’m voting for Hillary Clinton, the only candidate who will force women to have abortions, who will make pre-pubescent teens sign a “Nix to Virginity Clause” and establish a Sex Police who will force them to lose theirs as soon as they achieve menarche; who will deny federal funds to any medical facility, practice or practitioner not insisting that their clients and patients have abortions; who will at the State of the Union addresses bring jars of butchered little baby bits to show to all while she laughs like Ronald Reagan used to laugh; who spends the first hour of every cabinet meeting reviewing the number of abortions performed since the last meeting and haranguing the Cabinet to come up with better ways to market abortion; and who passes a law making it a crime to say, “Merry Christmas.”

As Mr. Dunkle wants the public to see him as a Holden Caulfield, vainly attempting to stop children from passing through the rye, I am doing what I can to magnify the imaginary forces he sees arrayed against him. This should spur him to greater effort, and it will impress the public with the importance of his labor.

Teen pregnancy rates have plummeted between 2007 and 2012, not because of abstinence, but because teens are using effective forms of birth control. But the so-called “pro-lifers” are latching onto the SS Trumptanic campaign in hopes of scoring some more:

In your Bible, it says Mary the virgin mother, right? So God did not have to deposit sperm in her; it simply declared her to be pregnant and fixed up the egg with appropriate additional DNA. Since Mary clearly is the mother, the the supplier of the rest of the DNA is by definition the father, even if that DNA simply came out of the imagination of an almighty god.

What actually happened was that Mary and some 15 or 16 year old boy were rolling around in the hay. He did not actually penetrate her, but he did ejaculate on her genital area. Some of the sperm entered her and swam to the target, causing her to become pregnant with her not loosing her hymen. (Basketball great Allen Iverson’s mother says that’s how he was conceived, and doctors have reported this is rare but not unheard of.) Of course, the truth would not have gone well with the village adults, so she made up a story about an angle coming to her at night. Her parents could therefore still marry her off to some old guy in need of a place to put his penis. But people like Dunkle want a story that matches his bible, so I gave him one. P.S. – Since an all powerful deity could craft the DNA into anything it wanted, a test of the foreskin would not yield useful information.

David, you are such a Debbie Downer! I had so much faith in the foreskin DNA as the undeniable proof of the existence of God. Of course, He also planted the dinosaur bones to test our faith. . .

One thing most people are not aware of is that ancient Greek for “a regular guy” was their word for “carpenter,” which is why Joseph is said to have been a carpenter. St. Jerome didn’t get into colloquialisms, I guess.

That the universe began with the big bang. That if there is a god, it is the god of deism. That there is reason to believe in the multiverse concept. That the earth is 3-4 billion years old and life began by random chance, then evolution dictated. That the philosophers who wrote the various texts of the major religions all came to more or less the same conclusion as to how people should interact – do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, and Smith all spent time alone in wilderness, and the visions they saw were induced by deprivation of sleep, water and food, with the possibility they managed to eat some hallucinogenic things that added to the visions.

God (sometimes called Jehovah, Allah, G_d, Yahweh, The Word, Creator, etc.) created the universe maybe a long time before he created the first people, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve lived happily with one caveat: they had to obey God. They did not, and therefore they and we their descendants were plunged into this vale of tears, with pain, treachery, ignorance, and death parts of our lot.

God chose one of Adam’s descendants, Abram (changed to Abraham), to begin a line of people through whom he would reveal himself again to us. This line is therefore known as “The Chosen People.” They were also called Israelites, Hebrews, and other things, and now they’re called Catholics (sometimes Roman Catholics or Papists). God said that from this group he would send a savior who would return to us the power to regain what had been lost through the actions of Adam and Eve; i.e., eternal life with him in heaven.
And he did send a Savior, Jesus Christ, his only Son. Those Israelites who accepted the Savior were at first called “The Way” (from “the way, the truth, and the life”). Later, as more accepted him, they became known as Christians, followers of Christ, the new Israel. Non-Israelites were invited to become Christians and many of them did too. That’s how The Chosen People came to be called Christians rather than Israelites or The Way.
Christians increased in number because Christ had told them to gather in everyone. To do this they traveled all over the world, converted many, and came to be called Catholics also because “catholic” means universal, or everywhere. The “Catholic/Christian/Israelite Church” is everywhere.

Right from the beginning people believed different things about Jesus. Some said he was a phony, even a devil; others said he was a man but not God, or God but not a man, or just a god.
They also believed different things about what he did. Some said he established a Church to carry on his work and chose Peter to lead it; others denied this. Some said he made his mother, Mary, a special human being; others said she was just like you and me. There were arguments over Peter’s successors, Baptism, food, consecration, the Holy Ghost, celibacy, chastity, divorce, gender roles, One God and the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and on and on.
Sometimes immediately and sometimes gradually the truth is proclaimed. False beliefs are called heresies. During the first six or seven hundred years of the Church’s existence, every heresy you can think of was examined and rejected. Only the truth was retained. Who rejected error and retained truth? The Holy Spirit did. When Christ established his Church, he said the Holy Spirit would protect it from error.

Although most heresies attract few people and soon die, some lead to Separations. That means they have perverted large numbers of people and are still around.

The first Separation was Talmudic or Rabbinic Judaism. Some Israelites did not accept Christ. They said he was a fake or a devil. The descendants of these people are called Jews and they’re still awaiting a messiah.

The next was started a little after 500 AD by a man from the Middle East named Muhammad. Although Muhammad did not believe Jesus was a fake, he did not believe he was Allah (God) either but just another in a line of prophets starting with Abraham. (Muhammad got the belief that Jesus was not God from the Arians, heretics but not Separationists.) Muhammad called himself Allah’s greatest prophet (although at times he called Jesus that). His followers are called Muslims.

Around the eleventh century came Orthodoxy. This Separation started because some Catholics rejected the successors of Peter as Christ’s voice on earth. The Orthodox have retained most other Church teachings.

Number four on the list is Protestantism, which Fr. Luther started around 1500. The first Protestants were also Catholics who rejected Peter’s successors. Over the years they have rejected many other truths and have broken into innumerable groups that often contradict one another.

The 2000 AD Separation is modernism. Some modernists reject this or that truth, or these and those, and some reject everything, even the reality of God. I have heard modernism called the worst Separation because it’s a mix of every heresy that’s ever existed.

Notice that these Separations occur about every five hundred years. When false beliefs become entrenched, God is showing us again, as he did with Adam, Eve, and others before Christ, what happens when The Chosen People lose sight of him. He demands recognition and when we fail to recognize him adequately, horror follows. The horror sometimes includes Separation.

Apparently I missed something along the way. I thought that as long as you accept Jesus, you get into heaven. And as long as you go to confession and tell everything you don’t even get stuck in a waiting area.

3 is wrong? I did a quick search re Catholics and salvation, and I found not everyone agrees with you. See Romans 8:38-39, John 6:37 and 10:28-29

4 is clearly wrong – I forgot you also need to buy indulgences. And if the person you confess to happens to be one of those pedophile priests, God surely would have removed his authority to exonerate anyone.

People murdered before they’re born probably do not go to heaven. The Church is not sure what happens to them. Obviously they are completely happy because they’ve done no wrong. But the beatific vision is reserved for those non-murdered who fight the good fight. That’s maybe 3%.

I can see the Zero Mostel fetus in that happy place, confiding to his best fetal buddy, “I know we’re not in Heaven; you know we’re not in Heaven. What difference does it make if they don’t know they’re not in not in Heaven?” Sounds like a win-win to me. It’s comforting to know I’d be happier if I’d been aborted, and a lot of other people probably feel the same. Anybody? Anybody? Bundy?

Hey, Mr. Dunkle, if I’d been aborted, I’d be in a spot where I’d be very happy, much happier than anyone ever is on Earth. And if it’s not Heaven, what’s the difference? “You know it’s not Heaven, and I know it’s not Heaven, so what does it matter if THEY don’t know it’s not Heaven?”

Which is what Zero Mostel said to his buddy posing as a Roman general in “A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the Forum.”

So, if you and your ilk were to be correct about the nature of fetuses, abortion is an objective good.

And since God performs about 30% of all abortions in America, even He thinks it’s good.

I can understand being “more Catholic than the Church,” but should you keep trying to be holier than God???

So, you say God says, “Do as I say, not as I do?” If Hillary Clinton acted that way, you’d call her a hypocrite, and rightly so.

To imply that God is a hypocrite is blasphemy. No wonder you worry about the state of your soul. I’d drop the blasphemy and worry less, if I were you, Mr. Dunkle.

As there is hardly any mention of fetuses in the Old Testament, you have to accept that when God said, “Thou shalt not kill,” he was referring to the nasty negative human-on-human social interaction readers of the daily paper are so familiar with. The fact that He did not include in the Decalogue, “Thou shalt not abort,” indicates that He knows what is permissible for him is permissible for all.

“Because of your disobedience, you and all of your descendants shall die. However, that does not mean just because I decree it, you also may decree it. In other words suicide and homicide are forbidden. I am the Author of life and death, not you.”

Now Chuck, in view of the above quote, why do you insist on equating yourself with God?

I’m just as sure the Bible omits saying “One may not murder someone before she’s born” as I am sure that it omits saying “Mr. Dunkle may not murder Chuck.” However, God trusts our common sense and the Catholic Church to include obvious and not so obvious behavioral prohibitions that are not in the Bible.

God needs you to say what he wants? YOU????? I thought it was omnipotent. It can just tell everyone what it wants, When god and I were sitting around enjoying a few beers and watching football last weekend, I asked him about you. It said, “That a-hole has zero chance of getting to heaven unless he starts recognizing that women can think for themselves.” So I you are right about your chances.